Thank you for providing such a clear and shining example of exactly what Maria was talking about in her OP. People who actually know anything about human sociology and ancient anthropology understand that she is absolutely correct. Men who don't know anything about the subject nonetheless feel fine about weighing in with how it seems to them - because how could a woman possibly know anything that I don’t know?. 🙄
The first war was only 10k years ago, according to The Smithsonian and only became progressively more commonplace due to changing social conditions, greater resource scarcity, as well as sedantism related to agriculture - and other factors. But for 97% of human history, humans survived by cooperating and being friendly. It's a hugely important aspect of human development and the main reason we ever made it out of the Paleolithic. The fact that later on there were wars, tyrants, and other non-cooperating or friendliness does not erase this fact.
If you don't understand that dichotomy, why not ask a question seeking clarification rather than trying to big-dog a woman to try prove your masculinity?
Homo sapiens first emerged about 300,000 years ago, sharing the planet at that time with at least 5 other types of early hominins. Why are we the only branch to have survived? After all, Neanderthals had bigger brains and had adapted well to living in cold climates. Other types of early humans found success for a time, but by about 40,000 years ago, we were the only ones left. Perhaps we should call it Survival of the Friendliest.
Many scientists now believe that it was our ability to cooperate, to share, to show empathy, and to recognize and accept others who were like us, even if they weren’t from our immediate tribe that allowed Homo sapiens to survive when all other early hominins died out. Collaboration, not competition is the secret to our evolutionary success and this theory is supported in a wide variety of ways.
As it turns out it is more than a metaphor — social pain is real pain. With respect to understanding human nature, I think this finding is pretty significant. The things that cause us to feel pain are things that are evolutionary recognized as threats to our survival and the existence of social pain is a sign that evolution has treated social connection like a necessity, not a luxury. (emphasis mine) It also alters our motivational landscape. We tend to assume that people’s behavior is narrowly self-interested, focused on getting more material benefits for themselves and avoiding physical threats and the exertion of effort. But because of how social pain and pleasure are wired into our operating system, these are motivational ends in and of themselves. We don’t focus on being connected solely in order to extract money and other resources from people — being connected needs no ulterior motive. ~Scientific American
“It is only as population density increases and food or other resources begin to become scarce, that there is any particular reason to kill others beyond occasional skirmishes or limited interpersonal violence. Mobile foragers don’t need to acquire belongings. They don’t want or need additional land if theirs is providing well for them. In addition, we see overwhelming evidence of the cultivation of mutually beneficial relationships.
The rise of agriculture contributes to the population explosion and eventually leads to greater reasons to fight or enslave others, although this alone does not explain the rise of patriarchal dominance hierarchy systems or war as a common occurrence. After all, we had approximately 5 thousand years of agriculture without that.”
